Barcelona hold secret negotiations with Messi’s replacement
With Lionel Messi now close to being 32, Barcelona have started looking for replacements for their all-time top goal scorer.
Age does not forget to catch up with anybody and takes a toll on your physique, even if your name is Lionel Messi, perhaps the greatest football player to grace planet Earth. Even the winger knows that his years are now numbered and soon, there will be a newly looking Barcelona without him.
Lionel is already 31 and in less than five months, he will be 32 years old. The Barcelona captain is eyeing an unprecedented sixth Ballon d’Or at the end of this year as well as a Copa America with the Argentinian national side. But however great his achievements might be, Barcelona cannot forget that they have to gradually look at replacing Leo Messi.
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Josep Bartomeu hopes that he can be known as the president who manages to land a replacement for the incredible little man, and he has had Mohamed Salah’s name in his mind. However, there are reports which now say that Barcelona have already held secret negotiations with Paris Saint-Germain starlet Kylian Mbappe.
The 20-year-old already has a FIFA World Cup and has been tipped to win the Ballon d’Or shortly. Not to mention, Mbappe is a lethal and debilitating goal scorer even though he is still of a tender age. Real Madrid are already eyeing a potential move for him, whereas Barcelona plot a transfer for him in the summer of 2021, a year before his PSG contract expires.
The France international is expected to cost Barcelona a whopping bomb of 300 million euros, and the Catalans are even willing to pay that much for him. While he may not be able to match Messi’s Godlike brilliance, he might turn out to be a very close duplicate of the Argentine as well as a marketable number 10.
By 2021 or 2022, the likes of Gerard Pique, Jordi Alba, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Sergio Busquets could be long gone or play a fringe role. Hence, Barcelona’s likely eleven is hard to predict. But the omnipresent Ousmane Dembele is still likely to keep his spot on the left wing, and with his teammate Mbappe, Barcelona’s pacey attack could easily stab daggers in the opponent’s heart.
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Is Kylian Mbappe the right man to replace Lionel Messi at Barcelona?